Istanbul exceeds Europe in Syrian refugees, aid agency head says

There are currently more Syrian refugees in Istanbul than in all the rest of Europe and nearly 60 percent of refugees are living in cities today, the head of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said on Oct. 26.

IRC head David Miliband told The Associated Press in an interview that "the iconic image" of a refugee being someone in a camp has changed.

"First, so many people are fleeing conflict and chaos that there's no room for them in camps. Equally important is that most people don't want to be in refugee camps and when they're displaced for a long time [they] want to earn a living - even if that means working in the black market," he said.

Miliband gave the example of Istanbul, without citing any figures. The IRC said there are currently more Syrian refugees in Istanbul than the 366,000 Syrian refugees it estimated are in the rest of Europe.

Currently, there are 20 million refugees in the world - including 2 million in Turkey - and 40 million people uprooted and displaced in their own countries, which Miliband called "a grisly world record."

The former British foreign minister said that as the president of a leading humanitarian organization helping refugees it's important to ask whether these numbers are "a trend or a blip."

"Everything says to me it's a trend, not least because the global situation is of more people on the move," Miliband said, pointing to the additional 200 million people seeking "an economic better life as migrants or immigrants."

Looking at the roots of what he calls the current "refugee and migration crisis," Miliband first cited "the tumultuous convulsions inside significant parts of the Islamic world."

He also pointed to the 30 to 40 nations that can't meet the...